Zanoni eBook

rosy, pursed-up mouth that will answer so sparingly
to thy flatteries, as if words were a waste of time,
and kisses were their proper language. Oh, pupil
of Mejnour! Oh, would-be Rosicrucian, Platonist,
Magian, I know not what! I am ashamed of thee!
What, in the names of Averroes and Burri and Agrippa
and Hermes have become of thy austere contemplations?
Was it for this thou didst resign Viola? I don’t
think thou hast the smallest recollection of the elixir
or the Cabala. Take care! What are you about,
sir? Why do you clasp that small hand locked
within your own? Why do you—­Tara-rara
tara-ra tara-rara-ra, rarara, ta-ra, a-ra! Keep
your eyes off those slender ankles and that crimson
bodice! Tara-rara-ra! There they go again!
And now they rest under the broad trees. The revel
has whirled away from them. They hear—­or
do they not hear—­the laughter at the distance?
They see—­or if they have their eyes about
them, they should see—­couple after
couple gliding by, love-talking and love-looking.
But I will lay a wager, as they sit under that tree,
and the round sun goes down behind the mountains,
that they see or hear very little except themselves.

“Hollo, Signor Excellency! and how does your
partner please you? Come and join our feast,
loiterers; one dances more merrily after wine.”

Down goes the round sun; up comes the autumn moon.
Tara, tara, rarara, rarara, tarara-ra! Dancing
again; is it a dance, or some movement gayer, noisier,
wilder still? How they glance and gleam through
the night shadows, those flitting forms! What
confusion!—­what order! Ha, that is
the Tarantula dance; Maestro Paolo foots it bravely!
Diavolo, what fury! the Tarantula has stung them all.
Dance or die; it is fury,—­the Corybantes,
the Maenads, the—­Ho, ho! more wine! the
Sabbat of the Witches at Benevento is a joke to this!
From cloud to cloud wanders the moon,—­now
shining, now lost. Dimness while the maiden blushes;
light when the maiden smiles.

“Fillide, thou art an enchantress!”

“Buona notte, Excellency; you will see me again!”

“Ah, young man,” said an old, decrepit,
hollow-eyed octogenarian, leaning on his staff, “make
the best of your youth. I, too, once had a Fillide!
I was handsomer than you then! Alas! if we could
be always young!”

“Always young!” Glyndon started, as he
turned his gaze from the fresh, fair, rosy face of
the girl, and saw the eyes dropping rheum, the yellow
wrinkled skin, the tottering frame of the old man.

“Ha, ha!” said the decrepit creature,
hobbling near to him, and with a malicious laugh.
“Yet I, too, was young once! Give me a baioccho
for a glass of aqua vitae!”